


bus stops

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Category: Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Attempt at Humor, Awkward Flirting, First Kiss, First Meetings, M/M, Malec, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Umbrellas, five times fic, just cute, legit that's all it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7274566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Nice umbrella,” Alec mutters, so that he doesn’t look like a total creep. A brightly-coloured umbrella is a perfectly reasonable excuse to stare at someone, after all. It doesn’t make him a weirdo. </p><p>The man grins. “It’s blood orange,” he offers, twirling the umbrella between long fingers. </p><p>Alec arches an eyebrow. “It looks like red to me.”</p><p>(Or, five times Alec and Magnus <em>don't</em> share an umbrella, and one time they share more than that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	bus stops

**Author's Note:**

> Some fluff for you! Because I enjoyed writing Malec so much that I couldn't leave them alone, and this was born! It hasn't been edited yet, so bare with any mistakes. I hope you like it, all of you, happy reading!

It's really raining by the time Alec finally logs off of his computer and yawns widely, cracking his jaw as he leans back in his chair. His cubicle is so small that his fingertips brush the magnolia walls when he stretches, and he hates it, hates how he elbows the pencil pot off of the desk every time he sneezes, hates how he can hear every single breath his neighbour takes, hates the mind-numbingly dull workload that he always ends up taking home with him, despite doing nothing else all day. He hates his job, basically, and today is no different.

He grimaces at the big wall of windows at the rain pouring down, grabs his sweater and curses himself for not picking up his coat on the way out of the apartment this morning. He's normally sensible about these things, but his alarm clock had broken and he had been running late, and he'd bypassed the coat rack in favour of catching the bus on time.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Alec high-tails it out of the empty office, almost knocking into Ellen, the cleaner, in his haste to get down the stairs. He mumbles an apology, gets a stern frown in return, and then shrugs his way out into the rain. Evening has fallen, and the sky is pretty dark, and Alec has no idea if there's even going to _be_ a bus this late – he's tempted to call Izzy and have her pick him up in their shared car, but he's pretty sure she's got a date, and she'd only lord it over him for looking all wet and miserable. Then he’d have to spend a week being forcibly shown a plethora of pathetic, soggy kitten videos on the internet whilst Jace laughed at him.

He sighs and starts to trudge down the street.

The bus stop is one of those pathetic little things with no roof and just a vandalised sign, so Alec resigns himself to getting completely soaked. There’s an Asian man standing at the bus stop when Alec gets there. He’s about a head shorter than Alec, dressed elegantly in a deep purple suit that Alec thinks might be studded with sequins. Somehow, it looks sophisticated rather than cheap and tacky.

The umbrella in his hand is – despite the intriguing ensemble – _easily_ the most noticeable thing about him. Even in the semi-dark, it seems to glow; it’s red, so red that it’s actually offensive to the eye. Alec doesn’t realise he’s staring until the man shoots him a wary look, which then transforms into one of amusement when Alec blushes and looks away.

“Nice umbrella,” Alec mutters, so that he doesn’t look like a total creep. A brightly-coloured umbrella is a perfectly reasonable excuse to stare at someone, after all. It doesn’t make him a weirdo.

The man grins. “It’s blood orange,” he offers, twirling the umbrella between long fingers.

Alec arches an eyebrow. “It looks like red to me.”

The man actually laughs, cat-like, white teeth peeking out from behind thin lips. “I don’t think you get to have an opinion on my umbrella, considering you look like something that cat dragged in. You do realise that it’s _raining_ , don’t you?”

Alec scowls, kicks at the floor a little. He wraps his arms around himself and shivers as a raindrop finds its way down the back of his neck. "Forgot my coat."

"You don't say?"

Alec snorts, grins a little. The guy waggles the umbrella in his direction and Alec stares at it like it's on fire. The man adopts a confused expression and makes a show of examining his umbrella critically.

"I did offer you an umbrella, yes? Only you looked as if I'd thrust a missile in your face."

Alec snorts again. "Sorry. I'm just not in the habit of accepting things from strangers."

“Only one way to fix that, I suppose,” the man says, holding out a hand. “I’m Magnus Bane. Got a name, sweetheart?”

Alec’s mouth falls open a little in surprise and he battles with himself for a minute before he hesitantly accepts the outstretched hand, shakes it once. No harm in giving out a name, really, is there?

“Alec Lightwood.”

Magnus pauses, mouth open slightly. “This is a bit of a long shot, but you wouldn’t happen to know a Catarina Loss, would you?”

Alec drops the hand reluctantly – Magnus has very soft skin – and nods, surprised. “She works in my office. Well, not works. Owns. She owns my office, is what I meant to say.”

A passing car illuminates Magnus’ face fleetingly, and Alec fumbles over the rest of his sentence – Magnus is _gorgeous_. He looks like a model. He’s got eyes that look amber in the dark, like whiskey, almond-shaped and ringed with delicate black eyeliner. There’s muscle under the suit, lithe and lean, by the looks of it, and soft, dark hair that’s been perfectly styled. Alec sort of wants a hole to open up beneath him and swallow him up – _why_ does he only meet _pretty_ boys on the days when he’s been too busy to have a _shower_?

“I thought so,” Magnus says, smirking like he knows what Alec’s thinking, and wouldn’t _that_ just be the cherry on the rather damp cake? “Cat mentioned an Alec a couple of times, and I recognised your badge.”

“You did?” Alec doesn’t really know what to say. It’s not every day that you meet your boss’s stunningly attractive acquaintance whilst looking like a drowned rat, after all.

Magnus smirks again. “Naturally. I did design it, after all.”

The bus pulls up just as Alec opens his mouth to ask, well, anything, really, instead of just standing there unattractively with his mouth open. He jerks a thumb awkwardly at the doors, stepping forward a little clumsily, and Magnus offers him a warm smile.

“Hopefully, I’ll see you again, Alec,” Magnus says. “If not, think of me when you leave the house.”

Alec turns right round, one foot on the bus and the other on the curb, bewildered. “ _What?”_

Magnus smirks. “You might remember a coat, that way. Or an umbrella.”

He twirls the umbrella, gives a little wave, and then leans forward to lightly shove Alec onto the bus, although he seems quite happy when Alec continues to stare, caught between whether to blush or smile. He whips around when the bus driver gives a pointed cough, and when he moves to sit at the back of the bus, his face is beet red, and he can still see Magnus twirling the umbrella through the misty window.

(If Alec searches the internet later, in bed, scouring his company's website in hopes of finding some information on the mystery man that apparently designed Catarina's badges, then nobody has to know but him. If he finds him eventually, Magnus Bane, and that leads him to Magnus's own website, which looks classy and professional, and details Magnus's design skills, which range from business cards to evening gowns, then that's between him and his internet provider.)

*

Alec isn’t stupid. He knows that there’s a one in a million chance that he and Magnus will meet again in a city this big, and he knows it won’t be under the same circumstances, and yet he can’t help but _want_ it to happen. He thinks about the man a surprising amount considering they’ve only had the one conversation, and most of that was one-sided anyway.

People often make the mistake of thinking that Alec is quiet and easily swayed – in reality, his shy, awkward nature is brought on by people he doesn’t know, people like Magnus, who leave a lasting impression. In work, Alec is perfectly capable of staring down the asshole in the cubicle next to him when he doesn’t bother to tell anyone after he breaks the photo-copier. The guy doesn’t even put a note up, so Alec stands beside the broken machine impatiently for ten minutes, waiting for the light to turn green, before he spots the outrageously guilty look that the guy keeps throwing him, and puts it all together.

On top of that dollop of humiliation, Alec ends up staying late again, and in a half-asleep state, he reaches for his cup of coffee and spills it all over his sweater, which is lying on top of the desk. Alec blinks at the mess, at the sodden state of his jumper, and then peers over the top of the cubicle. He’s the last one here, it’s dark outside, and rain is pounding against the windows.

“Fuck,” Alec mutters, glancing down at his thin white shirt. He’s going to get soaked again, and this time there won’t even be a handsome, well-dressed man waiting to brighten his evening up. It’s a big city, after all, and it’s been a whole week since Alec last saw Magnus.

By the time he makes it to the bus stop, he’s soaked to his bones and shivering, bag and jumper clutched in a white-knuckled grip. His hair is flat against his head, black curls made longer by the rain, and water’s dripping in his eyes. He tries to wipe off the water clinging to his eyelashes, but the back of his hand’s wet as well, so he just ends up blind for a moment.

“Catarina doesn’t employ stupid people, so you can’t actually be this dumb.”

The voice sounds fond, but that might just be because the rain is drowning it out. Alec wipes his eyes again and blinks in disbelief as the blurry form in front of him morphs into Magnus. Magnus, who’s leaned up against the bus stop, a long, delectable line of temptation. Magnus, who’s smirk sends a rush of heat through Alec even as he shivers.

Magnus, who’s holding onto a painfully yellow umbrella.

“I’m not stupid, I just don’t own an umbrella,” Alec says, taking a small step closer. “Hi.”

Magnus’s mouth twitches. “Hi indeed. Darling, let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard of a _coat_? You see, there’s a variety of different types of coats; duffle coats, pea coats, _raincoats._ I think at least one of those might come in handy right about now, wouldn’t it?”

He gestures at Alec with the umbrella, and Alec actually winces. It really is very – well, _yellow_. There’s no other way of putting it. It’s just yellow. Bright, painful, yellow.

“For someone with impeccable dress sense, you have awful taste in umbrellas,” Alec says, still wincing. He takes another tiny step closer, and then shifts his weight from foot to foot. Magnus’s face lights up, and Alec stops dead in his tracks, stunned into silence again; Magnus really is beautiful. Possibly the prettiest man that Alec’s ever had the pleasure of meeting.

“Impeccable dress sense?” Magnus says, delight in his eyes. “I’ll remember that, Alexander. I wish I could say the same for you, but apparently you aren’t even aware that you can add more than one layer at a time. You’re making me cold just looking at you.”

“I spilled coffee on my sweater,” Alec says, a little mournfully, holding it up. He’s very much wishing he hadn’t now, as the rain gets faster and colder. He hates shopping, and this sweater is undoubtedly ruined, and now he’s going to have to slink through Target in search of something that’s dark and will fit around his shoulders.

“Oh, is that a sweater?” Magnus asks playfully. “I thought you were going to clean the bus with it.”

Alec glares at him, but there’s no heat behind it, and Magnus must sense it because he grins and opens his mouth, taking a step away from the stop sign. Then he glances over Alec’s shoulder and sighs.

“Saved by the bell, sweetheart,” Magnus says. The bus slows to a stop, sloshing water over the curb, and Alec is simultaneously grateful and hateful, since he’s pretty sure he’s going to have a cold tomorrow, and yet he still wants to stand here, in the freezing cold rain, talking to a man he barely knows.

“I don’t think ‘saved’ is the right word,” Alec mutters, and Magnus smirks at him, just as a thought hits Alec. “Wait, how did you guess my name?”

Magnus looks briefly guilty, and then he starts backing away from the bus stop, still twizzling his umbrella and waving, and Alec gets preoccupied trying to find his ticket, and by the time he’s actually on the bus, all he can see is a smudge of yellow in the distance.

* 

The next day, at lunchtime, Alec trudges out of Catarina’s office in a daze, hands fumbling for his things as he passes his cubicle. His head is aching, and it takes him a good few minutes to find the zip on his bag through the haze of misery clouding his head. _This is what you get_ , he tells himself firmly, _for flirting instead of staying dry_.

Ordinarily, he would have battled through the rest of the day despite the oncoming cold, but he’d coughed and sneezed one too many times during a meeting and his boss had called him in to her office. She had taken one look at him, shaken her head sympathetically, and firmly declared that he was taking the day off. Her eyes had narrowed as soon as he began to protest, and Alec had promptly snapped his mouth shut.

Catarina should not have been an intimidating person, but she was. She looked sweet, sophisticated in a powder-blue suit, glasses balanced on the tip of her nose. Her hair fell in soft curls, and she smelled like coconut and freshly baked brownies. When Alec had said that he was fine, she had stood from her chair and glared, her glasses sliding down, and she suddenly reminded Alec of every time a librarian had hushed him, or his mother had told him disapprovingly that his bedroom was a mess. It was a quiet kind of intimidation; the kind you didn’t mess with.

It’s only raining lightly, just a small drizzle, but Alec is grumpy all the same. He’s already ill, he doesn’t want another dose of head-cold to see him through the rest of the week. It’s also slightly disappointing to find the bus stop empty, barring one rather large man who takes up a lot of space. Alec offers him a small, bland smile as he walks past him and leans against the sign.

It only takes two minutes before someone taps him on the shoulder, and Alec turns to see Magnus there, smirking. Alec opens his mouth to say something, and then _sneezes directly in Magnus’ face_.

Alec stares at him, horrified, as Magnus raises one hand and calmly wipes it over his face.

“That,” Magnus says, “was not one of your better opening lines.”

Alec groans, sneezing again – into his hands this time – and mumbles an apology through a bout of pathetically hoarse coughing. The man on the other side of the bus stop makes a tutting sound and wrinkles his nose in distaste, and Alec glares at him a little foggily.

“Are you ill, Alexander?” Magnus asks, his expression softening. He looks concerned as he raises his hand to check Alec’s temperature, and Alec leans into the cool press with a happy sigh. He’s aware that he probably looks like an idiot, but Magnus just chuckles quietly and wipes his hair back from his forehead.

It’s bizarrely intimate, considering they don’t know each other that well, but Alec can’t bring himself to care.

“How did you know my name?” Alec asks, eyelids fluttering shut as he shuffles closer. “It’s usually just my parents that call me Alexander. Everyone else just calls me Alec, and I know I didn’t tell you.”

Magnus winces. “Lucky guess?”

Alec opens one eye and squints at him dubiously. Magnus huffs a little laugh, cards his hand through Alec’s hair again.

“Worth a shot,” Magnus says, not sounding particularly contrite. “Catarina may have divulged that little secret to me, during an entirely innocent, casual visit to her office.”

“I didn’t think she was allowed to do that.”

“Technically she isn’t allowed to,” Magnus hedges, tilting his hand in the air. “But I bribed her with powdered donuts and had a sneaky look in her filing cabinet whilst she was distracted.”

Alec laughs loudly, surprised at both the comment and his own amusement, and has to stop in order to cough his left lung up.

“I hope I didn’t cross a line,” Magnus says earnestly. “My curiosity gets the better of me at times. Ragnor, my friend, swears that I was a cat in my past life.”

“And the other eight lives before that,” Alec says, smirking, and Magnus laughs this time, delightedly. His eyes crinkle at the corners and he looks ethereally pretty, like something out of a different world, something shiny and spectacular and bright.

“You didn’t cross a line,” Alec assures him, voice soft with appreciation.

“Good,” Magnus says. “Although if it’s any consolation, Catarina _did_ throw a powdered donut at my head when she saw what I was doing. Your file has sugar on it, now, and I had to wash my hair _immediately_.”

Alec laughs, which turns into a coughing fit which turns into Magnus reluctantly shooing him onto the bus as it pulls up beside them. The large man gets on first, which gives Magnus enough time to hassle Alec about going straight home and eating soup and drinking lots of water and sleeping, and Alec opens his mouth to ask for Magnus’ number, and ends up sneezing instead, stumbling onto the bus. He sinks gratefully into a seat at the back – someone really needs to look into getting a bench for the bus stop – and waves tiredly out of the window at Magnus, who waves back with his umbrella. It’s a light blue colour, with a pattern of clouds, and Alec was so busy trying not to nuzzle Magnus in his fevered state that he didn’t notice until now.

It’s not quite as hideous as his other umbrellas, and Alec would feel disappointed, but he’s too busy falling asleep against the window.

*

Catarina looks up as he knocks on her office door, pushing her glasses up her nose and beckoning him inside with a polite smile. Alec sidles into the stuffy room, his faith in his plan receding with each step. He awkwardly lifts the box in his hands in greeting, and Catarina narrows her eyes in confusion.

“Mr Lightwood, I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” Catarina says. “What can I do for you?”

“Quarterly reports,” Alec says, untucking the papers from under his arm and passing them to his boss, who smiles gratefully. “And a favour.”

One eyebrow arches gracefully. “Oh?”

“I heard that Magnus took a look at my employee file,” Alec says, trying to phrase his question in a way that doesn’t sound like blackmail.

Catarina winces, a resigned look flitting across her features. “I owe you an apology, Alec, for the breach in confidentiality. Technically it wasn’t my fault, but I should have been paying better attention – Magnus is an ass, so I should be used to his antics, but I got a little distracted.”

She looks genuinely apologetic, and Alec quickly places the white box down on her desk.

“Powdered donuts,” Alec says, grinning a little. “I was wondering if I could persuade you to be distracted again, and pretend that I looked through your phone for Magnus’s number without you noticing?”

Catarina looks blankly at the box of donuts, and then at the quarterly reports, and then up at Alec. Then she snorts, and buries her face in her hands.

“You were made for each other,” she groans. Alec blushes, pink dappling the apples of his cheeks.

“Is that a yes?” Alec asks, after almost a full minute of listening to Catarina make pained noises.

“I’m going to regret it,” she sighs, lifting her head up and pulling her phone towards her. “But Magnus made me promise that I’d tell you whatever you wanted with regards to him, if you ever came looking, and you don’t seem like you’re about to use his number maliciously.” She squints up at Alec dangerously, and he immediately shakes his head.

“I just want to share his umbrella sometime,” Alec blurts out. And then he freezes, horror rising in him almost as quickly as it does on Catarina’s face.

“If that’s what you kids are calling it these days,” Catarina says, and then she starts to snicker at the look on Alec’s face. “Traumatising euphemisms aside, you seem well-suited. Besides, who am I to get in the way of fate?”

She says it drolly, which makes Alec wonder what Magnus says when he’s not around to hear it, but mostly he’s just glad that Catarina’s opening her phone, that she’s actually doing this, that she didn’t get offended and suspend him for inappropriate behaviour.

“Thank you,” Alec says, when Catarina finishes reeling off the number. He saves it in his phone, under M, so that Izzy won’t get suspicious if she snoops around in his phone, something that she does often.

“I’m just searching for signs that you have an actual life,” she had said breezily, the last time he caught her scrolling through his contacts, and Alec had pulled her hair and insulted her cooking, and Izzy had shrieked and forced him to make his own dinner, which was what Alec had been aiming for in the first place, and everything had been right with the world.

This, though, isn’t something he wants to be teased about.

“Don’t make a habit of bribing your boss, Alec,” Catarina calls, just as Alec sidles back into the office. He flushes red as people look up, but he tilts his chin up and strolls casually back to his cubicle. He sits there for a good ten minutes, staring at the blank text message box, and then types out _Hey_ before he can stop himself.

Great. Just _great_. Quality communication skills, he tells himself, rolling his eyes.

 _It’s Alec,_ he adds, before Magnus can block the unknown number. And then, just in case Magnus doesn’t remember his name, he adds, _from the bus stop_. Then he opens a drawer in his desk, puts his phone down face-first inside it, and shuts it hastily, with a loud bang.

“Work,” Alec says blankly. “You have to actually do some work now.”

The seconds tick by agonisingly slowly. Alec gnaws on his lip as he makes a mess of his spreadsheet, and then he gives in and sighs, glancing at the little clock at the bottom of his computer screen as he opens the drawer. Three minutes. He made it three whole minutes before he caved like a teenager.

_Is that you, my elusive bus stop beauty?_

Alec blinks at the screen and snorts. _Is that supposed to be a compliment, or are you accusing me of being homeless?_

_If the sweater fits, darling._

Alec snorts, peers around to check that nobody’s watching him. It’s a sea of white, boring cubicles and blank stares, so Alec feels comfortable enough to lean back in his chair and grin shyly at his phone.

_All of my sweaters are too big._

_That was sort of my point, darling. How did you get my number?_

Alec bites his lip, hesitating for a moment. Will Magnus be angry? Creeped out? His phone buzzes, and he glances down to see a small army of smiling yellow faces blinking back up at him. He frowns. Are the faces a good thing? They look semi-happy.

 _I took a leaf out of your book,_ Alec types.

_Gentle persuasion in the form of baked goods?_

_No. Bribery._

He can practically hear Magnus cackling all the way from here.

*

“Why don’t I ever see you get on a bus?” Alec asks. He’s searching though his bag for the awful, pretentious hat that Magnus shoved into his arms the other day, a dark grey one with a little cap to keep the rain out of his eyes. He doesn’t actually like the thing, but it was a gift and the rain is coming down pretty hard, like it does every time that Alec so much as steps outside, and he doesn’t want to suffer through another cold again. As much as he loves Isabelle, she can get really pushy when someone’s ill, and her ‘homely’ chicken soup tastes like corpses.

Not that Alec’s ever nibbled on a corpse, but if he had to guess, that’s what they would taste like.

“Your bus always arrives first,” Magnus says smoothly, watching him with hooded eyes. He looks tired, but pleased to see Alec, which is nice. Nice enough that he feels a flutter in his stomach and has to look away quickly. It’s a reasonable enough answer, but inexplicably, Alec doesn’t believe it. There’s just _something_ up. After all, it’s a big city, and they are only two people in an ocean of humans, and it seems unlikely that they just happen to keep meeting up.

“I think you’re stalking me,” Alec teases him lightly, turning around with the hat in his hand. He shoves it onto his head carelessly, and belatedly notices Magnus’s frozen expression.

“Not stalking, exactly,” Magnus says. “I have more class than that, Alexander.”

He sounds a bit shifty, though. Alec frowns, adjusting his hat awkwardly. It doesn’t sit quite right on his head, and now that he’s actually wearing it, it feels a lot more expensive than he thought it would. It feels soft and heavy and warm, and Alec spares a thought for Magnus’s elegant, extravagant wardrobe, and wonders what kind of gift it was, truthfully.  

“I don’t doubt that,” Alec says, putting his hands in his pockets. He keeps quiet, watching Magnus’s gaze shift back and forth, watches his usually refined stance become more and more fidgety.

“I don’t actually take the bus,” Magnus says suddenly, in a tone of forced casualness. Alec stares at him for a long time, waiting for Magnus to speak, something strange settling in his chest. This light airiness is Magnus’s way of blurting something out accidentally, Alec realises.

“What do you mean,” Alec says slowly, “you don’t take the bus?”

Magnus winces. “I actually live across the street. I was taking the bus that first day, when I met you. And then the second time, I saw you out of my window and decided to come and talk to you. I didn’t think there would be any harm in it, but it sounds a lot creepier said out loud.”

Alec muffles a laugh behind his hand. “I think you might actually be more awkward than me.”

Magnus shoots him a teasing glare, but Alec can sense his relief. “You’re wearing that hat _sideways_ , Alexander. Nobody is more awkward than you are.”

Alec smirks. “Where did you say you lived, again?”

Magnus scowls, and then points with his folded up umbrella at the high-rise building across the street, painted white and gleaming with freshness. Alec actually cackles a little, and then coughs to hide it when Magnus grins at him, amused.

“I’m glad you find this amusing,” Magnus says, sighing. He taps the umbrella – silver, with a spray of pink cherry blossoms patterned across it, which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so sparkly – with his false purple nails and opens his mouth to say something. Alec feels his chest tighten – is Magnus going to invite him over? He mentioned something about drinks, once, in their increasingly frequent texts, and now that Alec knows that Magnus doesn’t live too far away, it seems ever more possible than before.

“Would it be too forward to ask…” Magnus trails off before Alec can get too excited.

Alec’s bus pulls into the stop, just as Izzy’s ringtone blasts out of Alec’s phone. Alec groans, grimacing at the screen, and remembers his promise to his sister to come and see her fencing tournament that evening. He ends the call, sends a few emoji’s – Magnus has been teaching him the fine art of the yellow smiley faces – to Izzy, and then smiles at Magnus hesitantly.

“Rain check?” Alec asks, one foot on the bus.

“Definitely,” Magnus murmurs. “I’ll make sure to bring my umbrella.” 

*

“Cheese sandwiches? You sure know how to spoil a man, Alexander.”

Magnus collapses onto the newly-installed bench beside Alec, at the bus stop, and pokes at Alec’s lunch. Alec tries to hold it up out of reach of Magnus’s questing fingers, but Magnus cheats and pokes him in the side until Alec relents and lowers his food.

“You might find this hard to believe, but not everything is automatically for you. These were actually for me,” Alec says, rolling his eyes.

“What are you doing out here?”

Alec shrugs, even though the answer is obvious. It’s his lunchbreak, and Magnus mentioned that he was home, and so Alec had come out to the bus stop, hoping, rather pathetically, that Magnus might glance out of the window and decide to join him.

Although Magnus _is_ here, so maybe it wasn’t so pathetic, after all.

“Enjoying the weather,” Alec says drily.

Magnus stares dubiously at the sandwich and then shrugs, takes a delicate bite. He chews, grimaces, and then swallows. “How can you eat this? It’s like eating really thick, sour cardboard.”

Alec raises an eyebrow. “Is cheese too plebeian for you? I’m sorry, I don’t generally have caviar for lunch.”

“Alec, please,” Magnus says. “Caviar is for dinner parties, or appetisers, if you must. It’s also _disgusting_.”

Alec laughs around a mouthful of sandwich. Of course Magnus has eaten caviar, and of course he’s had those little squares of cheese on a cocktail stick, from the giant platters, at fancy dinners. Alec can see him now, floating around a ballroom with a flute of champagne in one hand, commenting on the oaky nature of the bite of bree, probably speaking in French.

“I actually like cheese,” Magnus says, sniffing indignantly like he can tell where Alec’s head is at. “It’s all the rage in France, always has been. I just don’t like _your_ cheese.”

He grins, to let Alec know he’s teasing, and Alec rolls his eyes and shoves the rest of his sandwich in Magnus’ mouth. Magnus squawks loudly, shoves ineffectively at Alec, and eventually gives in, chewing with a murderous expression pasted on his face.

“Nobody’s ever managed to make eating seem like a threat before,” Alec muses. He glances up as a light drizzle starts to fall, dampening everything except the fluttering feeling in his stomach. It’s a little pathetic, that just sitting near Magnus, talking to him, manages to make him feel like he’s hurtling around on a rollercoaster, but that’s the truth.

It’s only been a day or two since they last saw each other, and Magnus almost asked Alec something that he’s pretty sure he would have replied to with an affirmative, earnestly. Alec wonders when exactly the rain check will be, and steels himself to ask – there’s no reason that it can’t be now, after all.

“It always seems to rain when I’m with you,” Magnus says, sighing. “Which is a shame, because I rather enjoy talking to you.” He winks, but behind the flirty expression is a serious one, layered and complicated.

“Lucky that you have an endless supply of umbrellas to keep us dry, then, isn’t it?” Alec mutters, ducking his head to hide his grin. Magnus digs around in his bag and pulls out an umbrella, tossing a cardigan and a sparkly necklace on the bench so that he can reach it, and then he shoves everything bag in his bag and shakes out the umbrella. Alec finds himself leaning forward eagerly, to his own horror, to see what kind of umbrella it is this time.

“You like my umbrellas!” Magnus says loudly, catching Alec in the act of leaning away hastily and grinning triumphantly. “I knew you did! I could see it in those pretty blue eyes of yours.”

“I don’t like your umbrella’s,” Alec says exasperatedly, rolling his eyes hard. He fixes Magnus with a hard look. “I like _you_.”

Magnus’s eyebrows shoot up, and he lowers the umbrella slowly, a brilliant smile lights up his face. “Is that so?”

“It is. Even though you smell like sandalwood _and_ cheese now,” Alec teases him, leaning a little closer. Magnus looks slightly horrified, wrinkling his nose.

“Alexander, that is _not_ attracti–”

Alec cuts him off with a kiss. When he breaks away after a soft, startled moment, Magnus blinks at him, expression flitting between annoyed and smitten.

“Four whole weeks of waiting for you to do that, and you picked the moment where I’ve just eaten _cheese_ _sandwiches_ ,” Magnus says exasperatedly. “Honestly, Alexander, what am I going to do with you?”

“I’ll keep my mouth to myself, then,” Alec says drily, rolling his eyes and picking up the last half of his sandwich. His heart is thudding fast inside his chest, and he manages to hide it pretty well until Magnus bats the sandwich out of his hand. They watch it land in a puddle with a sad plop.

“That’s what you get for threatening me,” Magnus says, before Alec can even sigh. “And if you don’t get back to kissing me, I’m going to shove this umbrella somewhere unpleasant.”

He brandishes it at Alec, and Alec finally does what he’s been wanting to do for about a month, now; he snatches the horrible umbrella out of Magnus’s hands, props it up against the bus stop wall, and leans forward so that they’re both tucked underneath it, sharing the same space. There’s a second of silence, and Alec feels his heart trip over itself and take off, his pulse racing with anticipation as their breath mingles on the cold air. Their noses brush as Magnus leans in, and Magnus has this adorably surprised look in his eye that fades into something hot and _wanting,_ something that turns Alec to liquid. He shudders, and their lips brush, hesitant and warm and soft.

And then he kisses Magnus, and Magnus kisses him, until the rain finally stops.

* 

**Author's Note:**

> How was that? Please feel free to leave a comment or a kudos, I would very much appreciate it! Let me know what you thought :) Thank you a billion times!  
> Find me at @thealmostrhetoricalquestion on tumblr, or @cococranberries on twitter. Come and say hello!


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